


A Cautionary Tale

by Brumeier



Series: Life With Eli [5]
Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Community: ushobwri, Established Relationship, Folklore, Goblins, Kid Fic, M/M, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26999755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: Blair's son Eli teaches him a folktale he's never heard before.
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Series: Life With Eli [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/186671
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35
Collections: Shoobie Monster Fest





	A Cautionary Tale

**Author's Note:**

> Written for: Monster Fest 2020 Folklore (Witches, Fairies, Goblins)

Blair sat at the kitchen table with his laptop, reviewing a former colleague’s paper on the rituals of society’s forgotten children – the homeless, the children passed from foster home to foster home. It was insightful but depressing as hell. Especially considering that the little boy sitting in the booster seat next to him, coloring in his art pad, was one of those children. Or would’ve been, if not for Jim.

Eli had a handful of crayons spread out in front of him – black and gray and brown mixed in with yellow and some of the metallic colors like copper and gold. His tongue poked out between his teeth as he carefully applied color to the page. Normally when the crayons came out, it was to recreate pictures of dinosaurs from Eli’s favorite books.

He certainly wasn’t recreating a dinosaur this time.

“Whatcha drawing, buddy?” Blair asked, leaning over for a better look.

It was vaguely person-shaped, with blonde hair and copper-colored eyes. It was maybe stuck in a hole or something, the black lines thick around it.

“A mooky,” Eli replied, drawing out the _oooh_. “See his hat?”

Blair wasn’t sure he did, and he didn’t have the first clue what a mooky might be. “What’s the mooky doing?”

“He’s a digger. He digs and digs in the rocks and he finds gold, cause that’s what diggers do.” Eli picked up one of the metallic crayons and drew a bunch of gold circles. “See? And his hat has a light, 'cause it’s dark down there.”

“So he’s a miner?” Blair moved his chair closer so he could get a better look. “Where did you hear about him?”

He was more than aware of the media that Eli consumed – the animated television, the brightly-colored children’s books – and none of them featured a miner.

“Daddy told me. The mooky helps people find gold, because he’s a helper and a digger, but if they don’t be nice to him, he gets mad.”

That sparked a very vague memory in Blair’s mind. For some reason he was thinking of the story of Rumpelstiltskin, who admittedly wasn’t a miner. But in that story, Rumpelstiltskin traded gold for the girl’s first-born child. What had the mooky traded gold for?

“What happens when the mooky gets mad?” Blair asked.

Eli looked up at him, face solemn. “There’s a big boom, and the rocks fall down, and those men get bad boo-boos because they didn’t keep their words. You should always keep your words, Daddy says so.”

Blair couldn’t help grinning at that, even though the implications were that the mooky had called down a mine collapse on the heads of the men who’d broken their arrangement. It sounded very much like a goblin story, and Blair had no idea why Jim would’ve told it to Eli. Or where Jim had heard it himself.

“Do you like my picture, Baba?”

“You did a really good job on this, buddy,” Blair confirmed. He pressed a kiss to the side of Eli’s curly head.

Later, when Eli was in bed for the night and Blair and Jim were alone, Blair asked Jim about the story.

“I heard the story when I was in Peru,” Jim said, drying the dishes Blair was washing. “The Quechua told their children about the Muqui. It was a cautionary tale.”

“Pretty dark stuff for a little guy,” Blair said.

Jim shrugged. “Not much different than standard fairy tales, Chief.”

“Huh. I guess you’re right. I never really thought about that. You know, the original Grimm’s tales were even worse than the cleaned-up stuff Disney feeds kids today.” Blair handed Jim the last plate. “You know, in the original Cinderella story, the stepsisters had their eyes pecked out by birds.”

“Those Grimms were pretty grim,” Jim joked.

Blair rolled his eyes. “Don’t quit your day job, big guy. So this mooky –”

“Muqui,” Jim corrected. 

“Sorry. The muqui. You ever come across one?”

Blair meant it as a tease, but Jim just shook his head. “We stayed well away from them. Bad juju, Chief.”

He put the dry plate in the cabinet and slung his dishrag over Blair’s shoulder.

“That’s a joke, right?” Blair asked as Jim walked away. “Jim? No real gold-digging goblins, right?”

He never got a satisfactory answer.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** When folklore day came up on Monster Fest, I realized I’d written witches and I’d written fairies, but I never wrote goblins. I did a little research, trying to find an angle, and when I heard about the muqui it seemed like a great fit for Sentinel given the time Jim spent in Peru.
> 
> The muqui will do some fine mining for anyone who keeps them supplied with coca leaves. But if they break that deal, they get buried under tons of rock. You never want to reneg on a deal with a supernatural creature! LOL!


End file.
